Pat From Spokane
Here Today Brewery & Kitchen

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a very dark mahogany brown, appearing nearly opaque in the glass with no head an little indication of carbonation; yikes.. Aroma of dark toasted malt, dark dried fruit, molasses and vague citrus; intriguing. Flavor is dark malt, dried plums, raisins, lemon zest, mystery herbs with summer herbs (sage rosemary) being dominant, a touch of vanilla and cinnamon; sweet and somewhat syrupy. Medium bodied with moderate creaminess and light to moderate carbonation despite the still pour; just enough to be satisfactory. An unusual strong ale with fairly complex flavor, but the elements are muddled and hard to parse. I'm not getting much stout presence at all, but there is reasonable dark fruit from the barleywine. There is a mixture of herbal spicing and lemon zest. It's hard to define the flavors here and it doesn't fit any of the traditional beer styles, even a blended strong ale. The herbal flavors are pleasant, but a bit muted. I think I'd like to have some more aggressive aperitif character to spice things up. That said, I like the flavor here quite a bit, but this was a bit sweet for my taste. Novel and surprisingly drinkable, but not for those averse to sweet ales. Worth trying if you like interesting flavors that shouldn't work, but somehow do.